The Man from the Hill

to produce deep blues. The 62-year-old guitarist is neither asoul modernist nor revivalist, but simply a small town automechanic who’s never shaken his love for old school legendslike Muddy, Wolf and Lightnin’.

A lifelong resident of tiny Duck Hill, located in the hills eastof the Delta, Farmer grew up on the family farm. He first tookup the acoustic guitar in his early teens, and through pickingcotton soon saved up enough money to buy an electricinstrument.

He played for audiences at home and at school events, andlearned about blues and R&amp;B mostly through listening to apowerful station out of Nashville.

“John R of WLAC, that’s how I listened to Lightnin’ Hopkins,Howlin’ Wolf. That’s how I got my first album by Lightnin’ [TheFire Records LP Mojo Hand]. I got the address off the radio andthey sent it.”

“I learned Lightin’ pretty good, and then I went to B.B. I canplay all the up-to-date stuff now—B.B., Little Milton—but I likethe old stuff, that’s the real blues. The blues they’re singingtoday, that ain’t blues to me, it just doesn’t have the feel.”

Although Farmer is from a musical family, he didn’t learnmuch directly from his elders. His maternal grandfather hadplayed the fiddle as a young man, but he rebuffed Willie’s offerto buy him a new instrument when he discovered the high cost.

Willie’s father Alex, a harmonica player who helped youngWillie tune his guitar, had played as a young man with hisbrothers including Walter, who was recognized as one of thebest guitarists to come out of the area.

In the early ‘50s Walter played together with Leo “Bud”Welch, who grew up in the region. Sadly, Walter was killed inChicago in 1964—“a woman liked Walter, and a man gotjealous and killed him”—and Willie never heard him play.

In his early ‘20s Farmer joined a loose knit band that playedat juke joints across the area—in Duck Hill, Grenada,Kilmichael, and down in the Delta in Greenwood andCharleston. He eventually tired, though, of the rough-and-tumble clubs where “people liked to fight like crazy.

For about fifteen years Farmer worked regularly with localsemi-professional gospel groups, including the Rising SunSingers, who appeared on TV and over the radio in Greenwood,the Angelettes, and, for nine years, the Grenada-basedSilvertone Gospel Singers.

Farmer eventually decided he wanted to get back into bluesactively. He initially didn’t want to deal with the trouble ofkeeping together a band, and began playing solo gigs.

In 2003 he helped found the annual Grassroots BluesFestival, staged in a meadow outside Duck Hill. Through theevent and he befriended downhome blues players from acrossthe state including Willie King and Leo Welch.

“The Man From the Hill” marks the first time that he’s spentserious time in the studio. Recorded over multiple sessions atProducer Bruce Watson’s Memphis based Delta-Sonic SoundStudio. Farmer enjoyed working in a North Mississippi HillCountry vein with Jimbo Mathus and session drummer GeorgeSluppick. He even dipped back into gospel, singing harmonytogether with Memphis’ Barnes Brothers on [the SensationalNightingales’] At the Meeting.

For the past thirty years Farmer has run his own auto repairshop, and hopes that the release of this record and associatedtouring will allow him to retire.

“I’m trying to get out of that shop, I’m tried of messing withthose cars. It’s been a long time.”